On March 10th 2020, professor Stanisław Luft passed away. He was one of the founding fathers of the Polish rheumatology. For many years prof. Stanisław Luft had been working as a researcher at the Institute of Rheumatology in Warsaw, first as an assistant to professor Eleonora Reicher and later as a longstanding head of the Department of Microbiology and Serology.
Born on August 28th 1924 in Kolno, during World War II he became a Home Army soldier and fought in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising in “Ruczaj” battalion under the nome de guerre Lech.
After the war, he began studies at the Warsaw Medical Academy from which he graduated in 1952. He presented his doctoral thesis at the Medical Academy in Katowice in 1966. He acquired his habilitation degree in 1980 and was appointed a professor in 1992.
Professor Stanisław Luft was a great humanist, an expert in ancient Greek, a cognoscente of literature and a long-time lecturer in pastoral medicine at the Higher Metropolitan Seminary in Warsaw. In 2013 he was awarded the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta. Pope John Paul II decorated the Professor with the “Pro Ecclesia et Pontyfice” order. For his commitment and work for the church, he was honored by Cardinal Kazimierz Nycz with the medal “Distinguished for the Archdiocese of Warsaw”.
For years prof. Stanisław Luft was associated with the Catholic Intelligentsia Club. He was an honorary member of the Polish Rheumatological Society and an editor-in-chief of the Reumatologia scientific journal, but above all he was a friend of the Institute and a promoter of the tradition and historical knowledge. He was a man of science, faith and medicine – and will be dearly missed by all who knew him.
On behalf of Reumatologia Editorial Team and National Institute of Geriatrics, Rheumatology and Rehabilitation employees we would like to express our sincerest condolences to Professor’s Family.
Bożena Wojciechowska, Maria Maślińska
